It’s all a continuation of new coach and sporting director Gregg Berhalter trying to remake the Crew in his vision. And when that meant parting ways with the player who has played more minutes in a Crew uniform than anyone else, well, Berhalter said difficult decisions sometimes have to be made.

“I wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t a very good deal for the club,” he told me yesterday evening. “I spoke to Chad the whole time. I said, ‘Listen, if you’re uncomfortable with this at all, you’re not going. You’ll be here.’ It was one of those things where you wanted to be really up front with the player about the interest from another club and we wanted to be very sure what we were going to get was going to be worth it.”

It goes down as the biggest personnel move in Berhalter’s brief tenure with the club. The Crew parted ways with six players who had their options declined a few weeks back, but a compelling case could have been made to drop any of them – mostly for financial reasons. When it was time to make those decisions, Marshall was one of only four players on the Crew roster with a guaranteed contract for next season.

Exact figures are not known, but Marshall’s contract was guaranteed through 2015 and his salary – second-highest on the club for 2013 – was expected to climb “very high,” as Berhalter put it. It’s fair to estimate that the move freed up at least $500,000 in the Crew’s budget, give or take allocation money – which I’ve heard is not just petty cash.

So now, the question is: what will Berhalter do with all that money? The Crew’s top two priorities are now to bring in a scorer and another central defender. I asked Berhalter when he might start using the cap space the Crew has suddenly been afforded.

“Right away,” he said. “We’re trying. We were almost active today in the re-entry and we’re aggressively pursuing targets. It’s just not always easy when you talk about foreign guys. They’re in mid-season and they have to get released by their clubs so there’s a lot of issues to deal with but we’re ready to use it. We have the funds and we’re ready to go with it.”

Does parting ways with Marshall make it more likely the Crew will come to terms with Gláuber, one of the players to have his 2014 option declined?

“Possibly,” Berhalter said. “He’s a guy now who it would make more sense to bring back at the right number but again, we’re looking for the quality and the right dollar amount in this equation.”

A clear winner in the situation seems to be Josh Williams, who performed well enough when Marshall went out with a concussion two years ago to be considered for the job on a full-time basis. Williams has bounced around along the Crew back line, but Berhalter has said he likes Williams’ potential if he sticks at one position and has mentioned that he thinks Williams is best suited at right center back.

Hello, opportunity.

“This opens up a spot for him to get on the field consistently at a position,” Berhalter said. “I think it gives a lot of guys opportunities. A guy like Chad Barson, it could make room for him as well in terms of sliding Josh into the middle and him at right back. I think it opens up a lot of options but more importantly it gives us flexibility to make a move when we need to.”

Williams has often cited Marshall as an inspiration, and even while filling in said he was not a replacement. Berhalter echoed that thought yesterday as well.

“I don’t think you replace him,” he said of Marshall. “He’s a two-time defender of the year. It’s not necessarily replacing him with a guy just like him. You change the outlook a little bit. You get maybe someone younger or someone from the draft you can develop. You look at other avenues. We’re not going to get a guy just like Chad to replace him. That’s not going to happen.”

Berhalter said both moves were a collaborative effort with director of soccer operations Asher Mendelsohn and assistant coach Josh Wolff. In the case of Paladini, Berhalter said the Crew is acquiring a midfielder who can add depth and fight for a starting spot.

“He’s very technical, a very good guy, very hard work rate, team player,” he said. “As we’re building this thing, we’re trying to look for guys who are A. good on the field but B. also have good personality and are team-oriented people.”

It makes me wonder if we might see more additions like this; players who maybe have not made significant impacts so far but fit the system Berhalter is trying to build for the Crew.

Berhalter said more moves are forthcoming and that the club could have news as soon as Monday. For now, the Crew coach and sporting director said he is pleased with the processes that are taking place.

“Things like this aren’t the easiest, when you’re changing an established player on the club, but what I feel good about is the process and how it happened,” he said. “We were very open with Chad and he had acceptance for it so it wasn’t like we pushed him out the door. I would never do that. He had a spot here until it was going to be something else, and he knew that, that he had a say in it. I feel good about that process.”